On the representation of the general interest in representative democracy

Abstract

In this article, the concept of general interest is proposed as a key element of the modern idea of representative democracy. Within the democratic framework, the conditions for thinking the general interest are founded on the modern concept of individual subject. Such a presupposition has been able to trigger the representative process of the self-government of the people. But what happens with the late-modern crisis of the idea of subject and rational will? Which consequences derive for the regulative idea of a general interest? Is it possible to have a substantially legitimate democracy notwithstanding the crisis of its basic foundations? The author deals with these questions concluding that without the possibility to think of the transcendent (and not immanent) identity between governors and governed it is hard to found democratic legitimacy.