Why democracy? This rhetorical question opens the dialogue between Ezio Mauro and Gustavo Zagrebelsky and measures the distance between what democracy should be and what, in reality, it is.

Democracy is the ideal of our time. But democracy is a highly complaisant system of government. It can stretch to include many things and still be called democracy. This is why its state of health or effectiveness, which lies in its ability to maintain promises, ought to be a cause for concern. Is it not odd, in fact, that the maximum spatial extension of democracy has coincided with insecurity, or rather a growing scepticism, one that is both commonplace and diffuse? This democratic disenchantment is becoming increasingly widespread, not between those who frequent the circles of power, but among those who are excluded. It is the sign that democracy, as a political ideal, is becoming blurred, is completing a half-circle: from below to above.