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128Book Review: Appeals to Interest: Language, Contestation, and the Shaping of Political Agency (review)Political Theory 40 (3): 398-401. 2012.
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126Procedural Democracy, the Bulwark of Equal LibertyPolitical Theory 41 (3): 0090591713476872. 2013.This essay reclaims a political proceduralist vision of democracy as the best normative defense of democracy in contemporary politics. We distinguish this vision from three main approaches that are representative in the current academic debate: the epistemic conception of democracy as a process of truth seeking; the populist defense of democracy as a mobilizing politics that defies procedures; and the classical minimalist or Schumpeterian definition of democracy as a competitive method for selec…Read more
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92Roundtable on Epistemic Democracy and Its CriticsCritical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 28 (2): 137-170. 2016.On September 3, 2015, the Political Epistemology/ideas, Knowledge, and Politics section of the American Political Science Association sponsored a roundtable on epistemic democracy as part of the APSA’s annual meetings. Chairing the roundtable was Daniel Viehoff, Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield. The other participants were Jack Knight, Department of Political Science and the Law School, Duke University; Hélène Landemore, Department of Political Science, Yale University; and Nadi…Read more
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88Sismonde de Sismondi's aristocratic republicanismEuropean Journal of Political Theory 12 (2): 153-174. 2013.This article shows through Sismonde de Sismondi’s work how peculiarly modern issues like the revolution, equal political rights (universal suffrage) and an industrial and commercial society contributed to renewing the identity of republicanism. That renewal took place in Europe, after the French Revolution, and in a direct confrontation with democracy rather than liberalism. The problem in relation to which Sismondi reflected on the institutions of political liberty, the republican constitution …Read more
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78Laïcité in reverse: Mono-religious democracies and the issue of religion in the public sphereConstellations 17 (1): 4-21. 2010.
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74Mill on Democracy: From the Athenian Polis to Representative GovernmentUniversity of Chicago Press. 2002.Redirecting attention to Mill as a political thinker, Nadia Urbinati argues that this claim misrepresents Mill's thinking.
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66Unpolitical DemocracyPolitical Theory 38 (1): 65-92. 2010.This paper analyzes critically the appeal the unpolitical is enjoying among contemporary political philosophers who are democracy's friends. Unlike a radical critique of democracy, what I propose to call "criticism from within," takes the form of dissatisfaction with the erosion of an independent mind and impartial judgment per effect of the partisan character of democratic politics. This paper proposes three main criticisms of the actual trend toward unpolitical views of democracy: the first po…Read more
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57Continuity and Rupture:The Power of Judgment in Democratic RepresentationConstellations 12 (2): 194-222. 2005.
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56Condorcet’s Democratic Theory of Representative GovernmentEuropean Journal of Political Theory 3 (1): 53-75. 2004.The basic theoretical premise of this article is that representation does not necessarily imply a break with democratic principles. Its goal is to challenge the traditional liberal-elitist approach to representative government according to which this system is a mixed regime that is not identifiable with democracy since its main institution, election, is a mechanism that is inherently aristocratic, although it can be implemented in a democratic way. I question this powerful argument by questioni…Read more
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46Book Review: The Meaning of Partisanship, by Jonathan White and Lea YpiThe Meaning of Partisanship, by WhiteJonathanYpiLea. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016 (review)Political Theory 009059171879757. forthcoming.
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42J.S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2007.The year 2006 marked the two hundredth anniversary of John Stuart Mill's birth. Though his philosophical reputation has varied greatly, it is now clear that Mill ranks among the most influential modern political thinkers. Despite his enduring influence, the breadth and complexity of Mill's political thought is often underappreciated. While his writings remain a touchstone for debates over liberty and liberalism, many other important dimensions of his political philosophy have until recently been…Read more
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37Republicanism after the French Revolution: The Case of Sismonde de SismondiJournal of the History of Ideas 73 (1): 95-109. 2012.
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33A Criticism of Intellectual CriticsLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 1 69. 2002.
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30Representative Democracy: Principles and GenealogyUniversity of Chicago Press. 2006.It is usually held that representative government is not strictly democratic, since it does not allow the people themselves to directly make decisions. But here, taking as her guide Thomas Paine’s subversive view that “Athens, by representation, would have surpassed her own democracy,” Nadia Urbinati challenges this accepted wisdom, arguing that political representation deserves to be regarded as a fully legitimate mode of democratic decision making—and not just a pragmatic second choice when di…Read more
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27Regimes of Memory: Distance, Identity and the Liberty of the CitizenIris. European Journal of Philosophy and Public Debate 3 (5): 141-157. 2011.The theoretical interpretations of liberalism in its relations to multiculturalism occupy a central role in contemporary political theory. Yet, although arguments of rights and equal respect have provided for reasonable justifications of cultural diversity, daily papers and political columns give us an image of democratic societies that is often intolerant, exclusionary and insensitive to the argument of rights when faced with cultural and religious pluralism. The diachronic rhythm between intel…Read more
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25Machiavelli on Liberty and Conflict (edited book)University of Chicago Press. 2017.More than five hundred years after Machiavelli wrote The Prince, his landmark treatise on the pragmatic application of power remains a pivot point for debates on political thought. While scholars continue to investigate interpretations of The Prince in different contexts throughout history, from the Renaissance to the Risorgimento and Italian unification, other fruitful lines of research explore how Machiavelli’s ideas about power and leadership can further our understanding of contemporary poli…Read more
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25Can cosmopolitical Democracy be Democratic?In Daniele Archibugi & Mathias Koenig-Archibugi (eds.), Debating Cosmopolitics, Verso. pp. 67--85. 2003.
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25Liquid parties, dense populismPhilosophy and Social Criticism 45 (9-10): 1069-1083. 2019.Before proceeding, I would like to clarify briefly two interpretative premises, one methodological and one normative, which sustain my argument. Understanding the transformations facing constitutional democratic societies is a demanding task. These transformations, whose multiple causes are socio-economic not merely political, reflect on the one hand in the decline of mass party form of organization and on the other in the success of populism as not simply a movement of contestation but as a rul…Read more
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25How to write about populism: on Me the PeopleHistory of European Ideas 48 (8): 1107-1110. 2022.Writing a book on populism is a risky task, not only because populism is an ambiguous concept but because the phenomenon itself is impossible to abstract from its environment. Populism is not a typ...
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