Il Rousseau tradito. Politica in rete e processi decisionali dai Meetup al MoVimento 5 Stelle

The betrayed Rousseau. Network Politics and decision-making process from Meetup to Five Stars Movement The article pitch a biographical interpretation to the processes of web political participation that from the active citizenship groups Meetup amici Beppe Grillo led to the digital party 5 Star Movement in Italy. The aim is to identify in the digital platform called Rousseau an empirical case of contradiction between ethical approaches to network/digital citizenship participation and actual practices of networked decision-making processes. Referring to the theory of Amartya Sen social choice, we will try to explain how the digital popular sovereignty’s project of M5S has failed: as historical case, it did not overcome the traditional model of collective choice based on the method of majority, betraying the social contract of Rousseau himself, according to which the deputies are not decision-makers but commissioners of a legislative process, expression of a collective will.