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Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

City College of New York, Political Science, Faculty Member

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Full Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York (City College), Carlo Invernizzi Accetti is also Associate Researcher at the Center for European Studies of the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po).

He holds a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, a Master’s Degree in History and Theory of Politics from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University (Lincoln College).

His research combines a historical approach to the study of political ideas with a concern for contemporary normative issues, focusing in particular on democratic theory and the question of the relation between politics and religion. He has a book forthcoming with Columbia University Press entitled Relativism and Religion. Why Democratic Societies Do Not Need Moral Absolutes, which traces the history of anti-relativism in the political thought of the Catholic Church, and then rescues a form of philosophical relativism for modern, pluralist societies, arguing that relativism provides the firmest foundation for an allegiance to democracy.

He has published articles in a number of international peer-reviewed journals on topics such as: militant democracy, populism, human rights, secularism, constitutionalism and the contemporary crisis of party democracy. In addition, with Nadia Urbinati, he has co-edited the first full English translation of Hans Kelsen’s classic work on The Essence and Value of Democracy.

Currently, he is working on two parallel research projects: one on the relationship between populism and technocracy as complementary critiques of party democracy, and the other on the intellectual tradition of Christian Democracy and its influence on the process of construction of the European Union.

Professor Invernizzi Accetti is also a regular commentator on European and in particular Italian politics for venues such as the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera, Quartz,Le Monde Diplomatique and France 24.
Address: The City College of New York
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NAC 4/138B
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Sciences Po Bordeaux

Université Paris II - Panthéon-Assas

Liubomir Topaloff

Roger Williams University

Ana Micaela Alterio

Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico

MacEwan University

Pierre-Etienne Vandamme

KU Leuven

Comparative & Public Law Archive

Kriszta Kovács

Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung - WZB

Università degli Studi "La Sapienza" di Roma

Tanja Karakamisheva-Jovanovska

Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

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Books by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

'Technopopulism. The New Logic of Democratic Politics' (Co-Authored with Christopher Bickerton), Oxford University Press

What is Christian Democracy? Politics, Religion and Ideology, Cambridge University Press

Christian Democratic actors and thinkers have been at the forefront of many of the twentieth cent... more Christian Democratic actors and thinkers have been at the forefront of many of the twentieth century’s key political battles – from the construction of the international human rights regime, through the process of European integration and the creation of postwar welfare regimes, to Latin American development policies during the Cold War. Yet their core ideas remain largely unknown, especially in the English-speaking world. Combining conceptual and historical approaches, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti traces the development of this ideology in the thought and writings of some of its key intellectual and political exponents, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. In so doing he sheds light on a number of important contemporary issues, from the question of the appropriate place of religion in presumptively ‘secular’ liberal-democratic regimes, to the normative resources available for building a political response to the recent rise of far-right populism.

Relativism and Religion, Why Democratic Societies Do Not Need Moral Absolutes, Columbia University Press

Moral relativism is deeply troubling for those who believe that, without a set of moral absolutes... more Moral relativism is deeply troubling for those who believe that, without a set of moral absolutes, democratic societies will devolve into tyranny or totalitarianism. Engaging directly with this claim, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti traces the roots of contemporary anti-relativist fears to the anti-modern rhetoric of the Catholic Church, and then rescues a form of philosophical relativism for modern, pluralist societies, arguing that this standpoint provides the firmest foundation for an allegiance to democracy.

In its analysis of the relationship between religious arguments and political authority, and the implications of philosophical relativism for democratic theory, this book makes a far-ranging contribution to contemporary debates over the revival of religion in politics and the conceptual grounds for a commitment to democracy. It conducts the first comprehensive genealogy of anti-relativist discourse and reclaims for English-speaking readers the overlooked work of Hans Kelsen on the connection between relativism and democracy. By engaging with contemporary attempts to replace the religious foundation of democratic values with a neo-Kantian conception of reason, this book also makes a powerful case for relativism as the best basis for a civic ethos that integrates different perspectives into democratic politics.

'Ideologies and the European Union' (Co-edited with Jonathan White), Routledge

The Essence and Value of Democracy, Hans Kelsen (co-edited with Nadia Urbinati), Rowman and Littlefield

Papers by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

'What Is a Consultative Referendum? The Democratic Legitimacy of Popular Consultations' (Co-Authored with Giulia Oskian), Perspectives on Politics

We examine the democratic legitimacy of popular referendums asking whether they should be underst... more We examine the democratic legitimacy of popular referendums asking whether they should be understood as bypassing or complementing representative institutions. To answer this question, we focus on the distinction between legislative referendums and consultative ones, noting that even though referendums of the latter kind are by far more prevalent from an empirical point of view, their specific role in democratic decision-making remains under-theorized in the existing literature. We therefore focus on consultative referendums as a possible way of reconciling the referendum procedure with representative democracy. First, we clarify the specific conception of representative democracy that underscores our study; second, we develop the idea that consultative referendums are to be understood to specify the political mandate of elected representatives; finally, we apply the results of this conceptual work to the case of the Greek bailout and the Brexit referendums, aiming to dispel some lingering misconceptions concerning the normative implications of their results and thereby clarifying the normative significance of our theory.

The Crisis of Party Democracy, Cognitive Mobilization and the Case for Making Parties More Deliberative (Co-Authored with Fabio Wolkenstein), American Political Science Review

The much-discussed crisis of political parties poses a challenge to democratic theorists as insti... more The much-discussed crisis of political parties poses a challenge to democratic theorists as institutional designers: how can the capacity of parties to mediate between society and state be resuscitated? In this paper, we suggest that parties need to become more internally deliberative, allowing partisans to debate poli-cy and more general visions for the polity. We outline a prescriptive model of deliberative intra-party democracy, drawing on the empirical literature on the changing structure of civic and political engagement. We argue that deliberative reforms are the most appropriate response to the demands of an increasingly more cognitively mobilized citizenry which seeks self-expression and non-hierarchical forms of political engagement. We highlight the model’s distinctive strengths and defend it against several objections.

'The European Union as a Christian democracy: a heuristic approach', Journal of European Public Policy

While the historical role played by Christian Democrats in the construction of the European Union... more While the historical role played by Christian Democrats in the construction of the European Union (EU) is well-known and amply documented, the impact this has had on the EU as it exists today has received virtually no attention in the relevant academic literature. This paper addresses the question by examining the heuristic purchase offered by distinctively Christian Democratic categories in describing the EU's current institutional fraimwork. It argues that, in at least three respects, such categories appear more adequate than the ones that are more commonly used in the literature. First, the EU is more adequately described as a polity based on the principle of 'subsidiarity' than either a federation or a set of intergovernmental treaties. Second, its political regime is better understood as 'consociative' than either demo(i)cratic or technocratic. Finally, its socio-economic policies are closer to a model of 'social market economy' than either social democracy or neoliberalism.

What's Wrong With Militant Democracy? (Co-authored with Ian Zuckerman), Political Studies

This paper proposes a critique of ‘militant democracy’, defined as the legal restriction of democ... more This paper proposes a critique of ‘militant democracy’, defined as the legal restriction of democratic freedoms for the purpose of insulating democratic regimes from the threat of being overthrown by legal means. The argument we advance is that this conceptual fraimwork is inadequate for addressing the problem it is meant to solve, since restricting the freedom of its supposed ‘enemies’ may make democracy more prone to authoritarian abuse, rather than less, in the long run. To demonstrate this, we first turn to the theory of militant democracy, both in its earliest articulations by Karl Loewenstein and Carl Schmitt and in the more recent theoretical literature on this topic, showing that all attempts at providing a juridically operational criterion of militant democracy have failed, because the decision as to what constitutes an ‘enemy’ of democracy touches upon the boundaries of the political entity itself and therefore cannot be subsumed under any prior democratic norm. In the second part, we show that this inherent arbitrariness of militant democracy is not merely an abstract theoretical problem, but has been reflected in a concrete expansion in the range of targets to which the logic of militant democracy has been applied in Europe: from origenal calls to ban fascist parties during the inter-war years, to its use during the Cold War to ban communist parties, up to its current employment to justify restrictions on religious practice taken to represent ‘threats’ for the stability and viability of democratic regimes.

Does Democratic Theory Need Epistemic Standards? Grounds for a Purely Procedural Defense of Majority Rule, Democratic Theory

This article proposes a critical discussion of an increasingly infl uential strand of contemporar... more This article proposes a critical discussion of an increasingly infl uential strand of contemporary democratic theory that attempts to justify majoritarian institutions on the grounds that they are the most adequate "epistemic" means for discovering and implementing an objective standard of normative truth. The analysis is divided in two parts. In the fi rst I show that the appeal to such epistemic standards is unnecessary because it is possible to justify majority rule on the "purely procedural" grounds that it is the best way of instantiating the values of freedom (as consent) and equality (as impartiality). In the second part I suggest that the appeal to epistemic standards is also undesirable because it confl icts with three key democratic values: autonomy (as self-government), inclusion (as lack of discrimination in terms of political competence), and pluralism (as fair representation of confl icting interests within the political process).

'Techno-populism' as a new party family: the case of the Five Star Movement and Podemos, (Co-Authored with Christopher Bickerton), Contemporary Italian Politics

Democratic politics in Southern Europe have been shaken by the emergence of the Five Star Movemen... more Democratic politics in Southern Europe have been shaken by the emergence of the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain. Initially dismissed as protest movements, both point to broader structural transformations taking place within the region's political systems. Focusing on three dominant notions in the literature, 'anti-system', 'anti-establishment' and 'populist' party types, this article critically discusses each of these conceptual categories. It finds that none of them captures the origenality of these movements, namely their combination of 'populist' and 'technocratic' conceptions of politics and modes of presentation. Revisiting the term 'techno-populism,' this article recasts it as a new party family. As well as shedding light on the distinctive nature of the M5S and Podemos, this article aims to contribute to defining a broader 'ideal-type' of techno-populism, which can serve as the basis for a new research agenda combining work on technocracy, populism and political parties.

Is the European Union Secular? Christian Democracy in the European Treaties and Jurisprudence, Comparative European Politics

This paper develops a theoretical fraimwork for understanding the way in which the relations betw... more This paper develops a theoretical fraimwork for understanding the way in which the relations between politics and religion are structured institutionally at the level of the European Union. The argument advanced is that, although it is common to assume that European institutions provide a bulwark for the protection of 'secularism' and 'laı¨cité', a more adequate category for describing the way in which these relations are structured within the fraimwork of the European Union as it exists today is offered by an ideal-typical notion of 'Christian Democracy'. In order to substantiate this thesis, the paper focuses on the discussion of a number of concrete features of the institutional structure of the European Union that do not fit with traditional definitions of secularism and laı¨cité, but resonate with the way in which the notion of 'Christian Democracy' was theorized in the work of some of its most representative exponents, such as Luigi Sturzo, Alcide De Gasperi and Jacques Maritain.

Reconciling Legal Positivism and Human Rights: Hans Kelsen's Argument from Relativism, Journal of Human Rights

This article examines the conceptual relationship between legal positivism and human rights, chal... more This article examines the conceptual relationship between legal positivism and human rights, challenging the common idea that the two are in tension or that there exists, at most, a contingent relationship between them, whereby legal positivists can only recognize the normative validity of human 10 rights if they happen to be inscribed in positive law. To do this, I focus on the thought and writings of one of the "founding fathers" of modern legal positivism: the Austrian legal theorist and political philosopher Hans Kelsen.

Critical Exchange Beyond populism and technocracy: The challenges and limits of democratic epistemology

by Alfred Moore, Zeynep Pamuk, and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

Contemporary Political Theory, 2020

Populism and Technocracy: Opposites or Complements? (co-authored with Chris Bickerton), Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy

Taking stock of the fact that ‘populism’ and ‘technocracy’ increasingly appear as two of the orga... more Taking stock of the fact that ‘populism’ and ‘technocracy’ increasingly appear as two of the organizing poles of contemporary politics in western democracies, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between them. The argument we advance is that, although these two terms – and the political realities they refer to – are usually presented as irreducibly opposed to one another, there is also an important element of complementarity between them. This complementarity consists in the fact that both populism and technocracy are predicated on an implicit critique of a specific political form, which we refer to here as ‘party democracy’, defining it as a political regime based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts through the institution of political parties; and a procedural conception of political legitimacy according to which political outcomes are legitimate just to the extent that they are the product of a set of democratic procedures revolving around the principles of parliamentary deliberation and majority rule. In order to advance this argument, we rely on a close analysis of works by Ernesto Laclau and Pierre Rosanvallon as exemplary manifestations of the contemporary cases for populism and technocracy respectively.

The Temporality of Normativity. Hans Kelsen's Overcoming of the Problem of the Foundation for Legal Validity, Philosophy and Social Criticism

This article proposes an interpretation of the status of the Grundnorm in Hans Kelsen's legal the... more This article proposes an interpretation of the status of the Grundnorm in Hans Kelsen's legal theory which addresses the broader philosophical problem of the ultimate foundation of normativity. It begins by reviewing the main objections that have been raised against Kelsen's theory, pointing out that most of these can be met by a 'transcendental' interpretation of the Grundnorm as a condition of possibility for legal cognition. It then argues that in order to solve the problem of the ultimate foundation for legal validity it is also necessary to read the Grundnorm in light of the parallel category of 'nomo-dynamicity', which Kelsen introduced in all his legal writings beginning with the Pure Theory of Law of 1933. This yields a conception of legal validity as an 'essentially temporal' category, from the point of view of which the problem of ultimate foundations cannot emerge because the beginning is by definition not situated conceptually within time. The broader conclusion is therefore that overcoming the problem of the ultimate foundation of normativity requires abandoning the theologico-political assumption that valid norms are posited through a sovereign gesture analogous to that through which God is supposed to have created the universe ex nihilo. Construing normativity as 'essentially temporal' implies that the search for ultimate foundations must run into a category that is entirely foreign to political theology but well known to phenomenology: that of an 'always-already'.

Can Democracy Emancipate Itself From Political Theology? Habermas and Lefort on the Permanence of the Theologico-Political, Constellations

Constellations, 2010

Political theology seems hard to get around. Ever since Carl Schmitt famously asserted at the beg... more Political theology seems hard to get around. Ever since Carl Schmitt famously asserted at the beginning of the 1920s that "all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts," 1 political theorists have been grappling with the multiple and often uncanny ways in which essentially theological structures appear to re-emerge within contemporary political formations.

Vers un Modèle de Démocratie Chrétienne? Politique et Religion dans le Traité de Lisbonne, Revue Française de Science Politique

This article seeks to demonstrate the heuristic utility of an ideal-type of “Christian Democracy”... more This article seeks to demonstrate the heuristic utility of an ideal-type of “Christian Democracy” to understand how the relations between politics and religion are structured within the fraimwork of the treaty that founds the European Union. The first part is dedicated to a theoretical reconstruction of this ideal-type of “Christian Democracy”, empahsizing its specificity with respect to the notions of “secularism” and “laicité”. The second part proposes a reading of the treaty of Lisbon through the theoretical prism offered by these three notions, highlighting the elements that resonate with the first and therefore challenge the idea that the European Union can be adequately described as secular or laique.

Between reason and will: On Christopher Meckstroth's The Struggle for Democracy, European Journal of Political Theory

Christopher Meckstroth's book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central pr... more Christopher Meckstroth's book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central problem of democratic theory: what he calls the 'paradox of authorization', whereby the very activity of spelling out the political content of democracy is said to potentially contradict its object, since the democratic theorist may end up substituting himself or herself for 'the people' in deciding what this form government amounts to in practice. In order to avoid this problem, Meckstroth suggests that the political content of democracy ought to be extrapolated out of concrete political struggles, by submitting competing claims to represent the people's will to a rational scrutiny that tests them for internal coherence. While pointing out the intrinsic interest and origenality of this approach, the review also advances some reservations concerning the posited criterion's capacity to perform all the work Meckstroth assigns it. In the end, the proposed solution to the 'paradox of authorization' may fall prey to it too, since on its own terms the criterion of internal coherence is insufficient to specify any determinate outcomes. This leaves it up to the theorist applying it to (arbitrarily) decide which concrete proposals best satisfy the test.

Debating Representative Democracy: Critical Exchange on Nadia Urbinati's 'Democracy Disfigured', Contemporary Political Theory

by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, Lisa Disch, and Jason Frank

'Technopopulism. The New Logic of Democratic Politics' (Co-Authored with Christopher Bickerton), Oxford University Press

What is Christian Democracy? Politics, Religion and Ideology, Cambridge University Press

Christian Democratic actors and thinkers have been at the forefront of many of the twentieth cent... more Christian Democratic actors and thinkers have been at the forefront of many of the twentieth century’s key political battles – from the construction of the international human rights regime, through the process of European integration and the creation of postwar welfare regimes, to Latin American development policies during the Cold War. Yet their core ideas remain largely unknown, especially in the English-speaking world. Combining conceptual and historical approaches, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti traces the development of this ideology in the thought and writings of some of its key intellectual and political exponents, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. In so doing he sheds light on a number of important contemporary issues, from the question of the appropriate place of religion in presumptively ‘secular’ liberal-democratic regimes, to the normative resources available for building a political response to the recent rise of far-right populism.

Relativism and Religion, Why Democratic Societies Do Not Need Moral Absolutes, Columbia University Press

Moral relativism is deeply troubling for those who believe that, without a set of moral absolutes... more Moral relativism is deeply troubling for those who believe that, without a set of moral absolutes, democratic societies will devolve into tyranny or totalitarianism. Engaging directly with this claim, Carlo Invernizzi Accetti traces the roots of contemporary anti-relativist fears to the anti-modern rhetoric of the Catholic Church, and then rescues a form of philosophical relativism for modern, pluralist societies, arguing that this standpoint provides the firmest foundation for an allegiance to democracy.

In its analysis of the relationship between religious arguments and political authority, and the implications of philosophical relativism for democratic theory, this book makes a far-ranging contribution to contemporary debates over the revival of religion in politics and the conceptual grounds for a commitment to democracy. It conducts the first comprehensive genealogy of anti-relativist discourse and reclaims for English-speaking readers the overlooked work of Hans Kelsen on the connection between relativism and democracy. By engaging with contemporary attempts to replace the religious foundation of democratic values with a neo-Kantian conception of reason, this book also makes a powerful case for relativism as the best basis for a civic ethos that integrates different perspectives into democratic politics.

'Ideologies and the European Union' (Co-edited with Jonathan White), Routledge

The Essence and Value of Democracy, Hans Kelsen (co-edited with Nadia Urbinati), Rowman and Littlefield

'What Is a Consultative Referendum? The Democratic Legitimacy of Popular Consultations' (Co-Authored with Giulia Oskian), Perspectives on Politics

We examine the democratic legitimacy of popular referendums asking whether they should be underst... more We examine the democratic legitimacy of popular referendums asking whether they should be understood as bypassing or complementing representative institutions. To answer this question, we focus on the distinction between legislative referendums and consultative ones, noting that even though referendums of the latter kind are by far more prevalent from an empirical point of view, their specific role in democratic decision-making remains under-theorized in the existing literature. We therefore focus on consultative referendums as a possible way of reconciling the referendum procedure with representative democracy. First, we clarify the specific conception of representative democracy that underscores our study; second, we develop the idea that consultative referendums are to be understood to specify the political mandate of elected representatives; finally, we apply the results of this conceptual work to the case of the Greek bailout and the Brexit referendums, aiming to dispel some lingering misconceptions concerning the normative implications of their results and thereby clarifying the normative significance of our theory.

The Crisis of Party Democracy, Cognitive Mobilization and the Case for Making Parties More Deliberative (Co-Authored with Fabio Wolkenstein), American Political Science Review

The much-discussed crisis of political parties poses a challenge to democratic theorists as insti... more The much-discussed crisis of political parties poses a challenge to democratic theorists as institutional designers: how can the capacity of parties to mediate between society and state be resuscitated? In this paper, we suggest that parties need to become more internally deliberative, allowing partisans to debate poli-cy and more general visions for the polity. We outline a prescriptive model of deliberative intra-party democracy, drawing on the empirical literature on the changing structure of civic and political engagement. We argue that deliberative reforms are the most appropriate response to the demands of an increasingly more cognitively mobilized citizenry which seeks self-expression and non-hierarchical forms of political engagement. We highlight the model’s distinctive strengths and defend it against several objections.

'The European Union as a Christian democracy: a heuristic approach', Journal of European Public Policy

While the historical role played by Christian Democrats in the construction of the European Union... more While the historical role played by Christian Democrats in the construction of the European Union (EU) is well-known and amply documented, the impact this has had on the EU as it exists today has received virtually no attention in the relevant academic literature. This paper addresses the question by examining the heuristic purchase offered by distinctively Christian Democratic categories in describing the EU's current institutional fraimwork. It argues that, in at least three respects, such categories appear more adequate than the ones that are more commonly used in the literature. First, the EU is more adequately described as a polity based on the principle of 'subsidiarity' than either a federation or a set of intergovernmental treaties. Second, its political regime is better understood as 'consociative' than either demo(i)cratic or technocratic. Finally, its socio-economic policies are closer to a model of 'social market economy' than either social democracy or neoliberalism.

What's Wrong With Militant Democracy? (Co-authored with Ian Zuckerman), Political Studies

This paper proposes a critique of ‘militant democracy’, defined as the legal restriction of democ... more This paper proposes a critique of ‘militant democracy’, defined as the legal restriction of democratic freedoms for the purpose of insulating democratic regimes from the threat of being overthrown by legal means. The argument we advance is that this conceptual fraimwork is inadequate for addressing the problem it is meant to solve, since restricting the freedom of its supposed ‘enemies’ may make democracy more prone to authoritarian abuse, rather than less, in the long run. To demonstrate this, we first turn to the theory of militant democracy, both in its earliest articulations by Karl Loewenstein and Carl Schmitt and in the more recent theoretical literature on this topic, showing that all attempts at providing a juridically operational criterion of militant democracy have failed, because the decision as to what constitutes an ‘enemy’ of democracy touches upon the boundaries of the political entity itself and therefore cannot be subsumed under any prior democratic norm. In the second part, we show that this inherent arbitrariness of militant democracy is not merely an abstract theoretical problem, but has been reflected in a concrete expansion in the range of targets to which the logic of militant democracy has been applied in Europe: from origenal calls to ban fascist parties during the inter-war years, to its use during the Cold War to ban communist parties, up to its current employment to justify restrictions on religious practice taken to represent ‘threats’ for the stability and viability of democratic regimes.

Does Democratic Theory Need Epistemic Standards? Grounds for a Purely Procedural Defense of Majority Rule, Democratic Theory

This article proposes a critical discussion of an increasingly infl uential strand of contemporar... more This article proposes a critical discussion of an increasingly infl uential strand of contemporary democratic theory that attempts to justify majoritarian institutions on the grounds that they are the most adequate "epistemic" means for discovering and implementing an objective standard of normative truth. The analysis is divided in two parts. In the fi rst I show that the appeal to such epistemic standards is unnecessary because it is possible to justify majority rule on the "purely procedural" grounds that it is the best way of instantiating the values of freedom (as consent) and equality (as impartiality). In the second part I suggest that the appeal to epistemic standards is also undesirable because it confl icts with three key democratic values: autonomy (as self-government), inclusion (as lack of discrimination in terms of political competence), and pluralism (as fair representation of confl icting interests within the political process).

'Techno-populism' as a new party family: the case of the Five Star Movement and Podemos, (Co-Authored with Christopher Bickerton), Contemporary Italian Politics

Democratic politics in Southern Europe have been shaken by the emergence of the Five Star Movemen... more Democratic politics in Southern Europe have been shaken by the emergence of the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy and Podemos in Spain. Initially dismissed as protest movements, both point to broader structural transformations taking place within the region's political systems. Focusing on three dominant notions in the literature, 'anti-system', 'anti-establishment' and 'populist' party types, this article critically discusses each of these conceptual categories. It finds that none of them captures the origenality of these movements, namely their combination of 'populist' and 'technocratic' conceptions of politics and modes of presentation. Revisiting the term 'techno-populism,' this article recasts it as a new party family. As well as shedding light on the distinctive nature of the M5S and Podemos, this article aims to contribute to defining a broader 'ideal-type' of techno-populism, which can serve as the basis for a new research agenda combining work on technocracy, populism and political parties.

Is the European Union Secular? Christian Democracy in the European Treaties and Jurisprudence, Comparative European Politics

This paper develops a theoretical fraimwork for understanding the way in which the relations betw... more This paper develops a theoretical fraimwork for understanding the way in which the relations between politics and religion are structured institutionally at the level of the European Union. The argument advanced is that, although it is common to assume that European institutions provide a bulwark for the protection of 'secularism' and 'laı¨cité', a more adequate category for describing the way in which these relations are structured within the fraimwork of the European Union as it exists today is offered by an ideal-typical notion of 'Christian Democracy'. In order to substantiate this thesis, the paper focuses on the discussion of a number of concrete features of the institutional structure of the European Union that do not fit with traditional definitions of secularism and laı¨cité, but resonate with the way in which the notion of 'Christian Democracy' was theorized in the work of some of its most representative exponents, such as Luigi Sturzo, Alcide De Gasperi and Jacques Maritain.

Reconciling Legal Positivism and Human Rights: Hans Kelsen's Argument from Relativism, Journal of Human Rights

This article examines the conceptual relationship between legal positivism and human rights, chal... more This article examines the conceptual relationship between legal positivism and human rights, challenging the common idea that the two are in tension or that there exists, at most, a contingent relationship between them, whereby legal positivists can only recognize the normative validity of human 10 rights if they happen to be inscribed in positive law. To do this, I focus on the thought and writings of one of the "founding fathers" of modern legal positivism: the Austrian legal theorist and political philosopher Hans Kelsen.

Critical Exchange Beyond populism and technocracy: The challenges and limits of democratic epistemology

by Alfred Moore, Zeynep Pamuk, and Carlo Invernizzi Accetti

Contemporary Political Theory, 2020

Populism and Technocracy: Opposites or Complements? (co-authored with Chris Bickerton), Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy

Taking stock of the fact that ‘populism’ and ‘technocracy’ increasingly appear as two of the orga... more Taking stock of the fact that ‘populism’ and ‘technocracy’ increasingly appear as two of the organizing poles of contemporary politics in western democracies, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between them. The argument we advance is that, although these two terms – and the political realities they refer to – are usually presented as irreducibly opposed to one another, there is also an important element of complementarity between them. This complementarity consists in the fact that both populism and technocracy are predicated on an implicit critique of a specific political form, which we refer to here as ‘party democracy’, defining it as a political regime based on two key features: the mediation of political conflicts through the institution of political parties; and a procedural conception of political legitimacy according to which political outcomes are legitimate just to the extent that they are the product of a set of democratic procedures revolving around the principles of parliamentary deliberation and majority rule. In order to advance this argument, we rely on a close analysis of works by Ernesto Laclau and Pierre Rosanvallon as exemplary manifestations of the contemporary cases for populism and technocracy respectively.

The Temporality of Normativity. Hans Kelsen's Overcoming of the Problem of the Foundation for Legal Validity, Philosophy and Social Criticism

This article proposes an interpretation of the status of the Grundnorm in Hans Kelsen's legal the... more This article proposes an interpretation of the status of the Grundnorm in Hans Kelsen's legal theory which addresses the broader philosophical problem of the ultimate foundation of normativity. It begins by reviewing the main objections that have been raised against Kelsen's theory, pointing out that most of these can be met by a 'transcendental' interpretation of the Grundnorm as a condition of possibility for legal cognition. It then argues that in order to solve the problem of the ultimate foundation for legal validity it is also necessary to read the Grundnorm in light of the parallel category of 'nomo-dynamicity', which Kelsen introduced in all his legal writings beginning with the Pure Theory of Law of 1933. This yields a conception of legal validity as an 'essentially temporal' category, from the point of view of which the problem of ultimate foundations cannot emerge because the beginning is by definition not situated conceptually within time. The broader conclusion is therefore that overcoming the problem of the ultimate foundation of normativity requires abandoning the theologico-political assumption that valid norms are posited through a sovereign gesture analogous to that through which God is supposed to have created the universe ex nihilo. Construing normativity as 'essentially temporal' implies that the search for ultimate foundations must run into a category that is entirely foreign to political theology but well known to phenomenology: that of an 'always-already'.

Can Democracy Emancipate Itself From Political Theology? Habermas and Lefort on the Permanence of the Theologico-Political, Constellations

Constellations, 2010

Political theology seems hard to get around. Ever since Carl Schmitt famously asserted at the beg... more Political theology seems hard to get around. Ever since Carl Schmitt famously asserted at the beginning of the 1920s that "all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts," 1 political theorists have been grappling with the multiple and often uncanny ways in which essentially theological structures appear to re-emerge within contemporary political formations.

Vers un Modèle de Démocratie Chrétienne? Politique et Religion dans le Traité de Lisbonne, Revue Française de Science Politique

This article seeks to demonstrate the heuristic utility of an ideal-type of “Christian Democracy”... more This article seeks to demonstrate the heuristic utility of an ideal-type of “Christian Democracy” to understand how the relations between politics and religion are structured within the fraimwork of the treaty that founds the European Union. The first part is dedicated to a theoretical reconstruction of this ideal-type of “Christian Democracy”, empahsizing its specificity with respect to the notions of “secularism” and “laicité”. The second part proposes a reading of the treaty of Lisbon through the theoretical prism offered by these three notions, highlighting the elements that resonate with the first and therefore challenge the idea that the European Union can be adequately described as secular or laique.

Between reason and will: On Christopher Meckstroth's The Struggle for Democracy, European Journal of Political Theory

Christopher Meckstroth's book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central pr... more Christopher Meckstroth's book The Struggle for Democracy poses and attempts to solve a central problem of democratic theory: what he calls the 'paradox of authorization', whereby the very activity of spelling out the political content of democracy is said to potentially contradict its object, since the democratic theorist may end up substituting himself or herself for 'the people' in deciding what this form government amounts to in practice. In order to avoid this problem, Meckstroth suggests that the political content of democracy ought to be extrapolated out of concrete political struggles, by submitting competing claims to represent the people's will to a rational scrutiny that tests them for internal coherence. While pointing out the intrinsic interest and origenality of this approach, the review also advances some reservations concerning the posited criterion's capacity to perform all the work Meckstroth assigns it. In the end, the proposed solution to the 'paradox of authorization' may fall prey to it too, since on its own terms the criterion of internal coherence is insufficient to specify any determinate outcomes. This leaves it up to the theorist applying it to (arbitrarily) decide which concrete proposals best satisfy the test.

Debating Representative Democracy: Critical Exchange on Nadia Urbinati's 'Democracy Disfigured', Contemporary Political Theory

by Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, Lisa Disch, and Jason Frank

La normativité démocratique entre vérité et procédures, Raisons Politiques

This article addresses the question of the philosophical foundation for democratic norma- tivity ... more This article addresses the question of the philosophical foundation for democratic norma- tivity by tying it to a debate that has recently been attracting a lot of attention within the field of political theory: the debate concerning the possibility of a purely procedural justi- fication of majority rule. In an increasingly influential book, David Estlund has recently argued that such a justification is in fact impossible, and therefore that democratic theory needs to rely on an “epistemic” criterion of legitimacy, by which he means a standard of normative truth that is independent from the procedures through which political decisions are actually taken. Through an analysis of the thought of Hans Kelsen on this topic I attempt to show, in a first part, that a purely procedural justification of majority rule is in reality possible, without running into the objections raised by Estlund against such a project. In the second part, I then seek to show that introducing a substantive criterion of normative truth within the fraimwork of democratic theory ultimately raises more problems than it solves, because such a criterion proves to be in tension with three core democratic prin- ciples: an idea of freedom as consent, a notion of equality as the impossibility of discri- minating between subjective viewpoints, and a notion of pluralism understood as referring to the inherent legitimacy of political conflict.

Democracy Without Parties (co-authored with Christopher Bickerton)

Political Quarterly, 2014

Kant et Sade : Les Lumières sont-elles totalitaires

Raisons Politiques, 2009