Culture democratiche: trasformazioni semantiche e istituzionali della democrazia tra pensiero politico e condotta di vita

Not all languages have a term corresponding to democracy. For this reason, they utilise translations (Min Zhu in China, Eddembe ery’obuntu in Uganda) or transliterations (Demokaraasi in Senegal, Demokrasya in Philippines). The analysis of linguistic transpositions shows that the meanings attributed to the word democracy vary greatly between cultures and, within the same society, between different groups. In this way it is possible to reveal which elements or values have prominence into the community considered. The differences in the way of thinking about democracy are so great that they make it impossible to attribute a univocal meaning to the word democracy. The aim of this thesis is to show some cultural reasons for an open conception of democracy, which cannot coincide only with the liberal democratic model - which is itself a cultural product.