Freedom, Equality and Fraternity?
Cracks of democracies in the era of political and social fragmentation
- Principal investigator: Elia Marzal
- Research group: Patrimonial Law Group
- Funding body: Aristos Campus Mundus
About project
This project aims to address the type of situations in which equality (a necessary condition of freedom) fails, whereby the corrective action of the State must enter (according to the idea of fraternity), so that the system can continue to guarantee not only freedom, but also its legitimacy – something that is especially problematic and for which legal systems struggle to find an answer.
This occurs - in the public sphere - in the case of decentralized states with structural minorities, whose will can be diluted by majority rule. The project will analyse the need to adapt this rule to guarantee the survival of minorities, as well as the need to adapt the rule within the territory of the minority group. It will also analyse whether the electoral system is an aseptic instrument, or is at the service of the ruling classes to condition final results in line with their interests.
The new forms of political participation which encourage direct participation to the detriment of representative participation will also be studied to determine to what extent these forms of participation can replace the classic structure of representative democracy. Finally, in the private sphere, the project will analyze whether contractual law (national and international) respects the principle of freedom, while especially vulnerable groups may see their negotiating position compromised in the face of a more “powerful” counterpart.
