Alessandro Pizzorno teorico della politica

Abstract

The article aims to highlight Pizzorno’s contribution to political theory, identifying two fundamental issues of his research: conflict and representation. On these issues the author has not only developed a constant dialogue with the classics of sociology, but has also dealt with the classics of political thought, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Schmitt. He adopted a realistic approach to the problem of politics, an approach that sought to go beyond the realistic theory of interests, by raising the question of the identity of stakeholders and by analyzing the processes of “conversion” through which identities transform themselves. Putting the concept of recognition at the center of his theory, he elaborated the Hegelian critique to Hobbes and the contractualist paradigm from which the theory of rational choice drew its strength: not social contract among equals, but recognition among unequals – which has to be mutual recognition, because not even the strongest can afford not to be recognized by the weakest.