Acceso usuarios
Gianfranco Pasquino 
In one of his most acclaimed books, The future of democracy, Norberto Bobbio identified several promises of democractic theory that have not been kept: the role of the individual citizen, the constraints on the power of organised interests, the elimination of invisible power, the political education of citizens, the enlargement of the space for democracy, the disappearance of oligarchies, the marginalisation of government by technocrats. Making reference to the conspicuous literature on the topic, this paper explores which promises have not been kept and why. Building on Bobbio's political considerations, this paper provides a somewhat synthetic recognition of the most important problems affecting contemporary democratic regimes. Scientific literature addressed most of the promises and the paper refers to available material confirming and disavowing Bobbio's standpoints. The paper also contains an analysis and evaluation of the complex and changing ways of meeting the challenges not of democracy, but within democracy. Some of these challenges are seldom fully resolved and often only transferred elsewhere. The overall conclusion is twofold: there is always a gap between what has been defined as "ideal democracy" and the "real democracy" actually created. Real democracies are always changing and adapting to challenges. Long lasting democracies may suffer from new problems, but so far, all of them have succeeded in dealing, more or less satisfactorily, with challenges old and new. Contemporary political science needs more and better theorising.
