Acceso usuarios
Over the last twenty years, the social construction of democratic consent has been increasingly linked to the concept of climate of opinion, both with reference to general elections and to trends in public opinion. In this paper, my aim is to discuss the theoretical dimension of this concept and to argue three theses regarding the importance of climate of opinion for political consent and for the future of our democracy. The first thesis concerns the basic role of consent and participation in the life of representative democracy. In fact, both are founded on opinion, a specific form of social agency, which provides legitimacy to government and state. The second refers to the shift from public opinion to climate of opinion, i. e. to a new perspective, which looks at opinion dynamics as the stakes of democracy. The third thesis claims the growing relevance of climate of opinion within the «audience democracy» in order to build tacit consent, but also to reduce the quality of democratic participation and then conscious consent. In this perspective, climate of opinion seems to play an ambiguous role: it promises the development of an open society, but in fact it locks citizens-audience inside a golden cage.
